BANGKOK: Thailand’s prime minister met with Saudi Arabia’s charge d’affairs on Monday to seek an end to a bloody row over a jewellery theft that led to the deaths of three envoys and a two-decade severing of diplomatic ties.
The dispute stemmed from the theft of 90kg of jewels worth $20 million by a Thai janitor working in the palace of a Saudi prince in 1989. A large number of the gems, including a rare blue diamond, are yet to be recovered.
The theft of the Saudi heirlooms remains one of Thailand’s biggest unsolved mysteries and was followed by a bloody trail of destruction that has seen some of Thailand’s top police generals implicated.
A year after the theft, Saudi diplomats in Thailand were killed in three separate assassinations in a single night.
A month later, a Saudi businessman who witnessed one of the shootings disappeared and in 1994, the wife and child of a jewellery dealer suspected of selling some of the stolen gems were kidnapped and murdered.
Saudi Arabia downgraded diplomatic relations in 1990 and is still pushing for the return of the blue diamond and for prosecutors to solve the case of businessman Muhammad al-Ruwaili’s disappearance, for which the statute of limitations is due to expire next month.
Thailand is eager to normalise ties with the oil-rich Kingdom after a spat that has cost billions of dollars in two-way trade and tourism revenues and the loss of jobs to tens of thousands of Thai migrant workers.
“We are trying to improve relations. On the legal cases, we are watching closely,” Abhisit told reporters.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
the coloured part of the thread sounds like a plot of amovie. is not it ?